Quote from: Benoist;566434I don't.

Based on what? Your whiny complaining about a system you don't like nor understand? Get a life.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;566485Get a life.

No U.

Quote from: game.monkey;566267One of the perceived problems with CoC is there's too much Fail - this mechanic is a way of letting people succeed every now and then.

Succeed "every now and then", huh?  The game survives 30 years, but now needs to be "fixed".

Quote from: game.monkey;566267So you're happy with a dog arriving in (say) a random roll of 3d6 rounds, but unhappy if the result of a skill roll determines when it arrives?

If my skill check is not "Dog Summoning" then yeah, I'm very unhappy.

Quote from: game.monkey;566267Horror stories are full of examples of people going into the cellar / off into the woods for a closer look when you know full well they should stay put.  Pushing rolls in CoC is a great way of playing into the horror tropes of wandering off saying "I'll be right back" and it all going wrong for the character.

Call of Cthulhu is a game of emulating Lovecraft's stories, not Horror Movies from TV Tropes.

So far I really fail to see what the goal of these changes are that doesn't fall into the traps we've seen other long-running RPGs fall into...

1. Change for the sake of change.
2. New kid stuff is kewler.
3. The game that may have existed longer then the new authors have been alive is flawed in some fundamental way.

On the whole I do not like either the new Push or Luck rules. At all. And not because it's resource management. A generic task retest rule would be far better then the Push rule we currently have. And I'd be a lot happier if Luck was spent before a roll instead of boosting one after,.

But guess what? I can easily make sure that's the case in the games I play

The new connections and insanity rules are brilliant however, in the way they can twist existing connections. For example, if your mom is a connection, then perhaps when you go further down the rabbit hole you keep her around Psycho style after she departs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;565731Unless you're really trying to argue that "I'll scratch out these two points of damage and get a minor consequence, so I can stay conscious instead of being taken out" is the equivalent of "if I win the roll, then the Morgoth will suddenly realize that I'm his long lost half-brother and will hand me over rule of the grand duchy, even though none of that has fuck all with what you planned as GM, or made any sense at all in the setting, or was ever brought up before by my character in the game".

You do realize that there is not one RPG or Storygame in existence which does this. But whatever you need to do to this strawman to keep warm at night.

Quote from: Benoist;566238You are aware that you are validating CRKrueger's claim earlier that this kind of "fix" is basically trying to solve a problem of GMing skills, and thereby people, with yet-more-rules, correct? That these are actually not the only ways to handle skill rolls, and that the game might benefit from actual advice on the use of skills rolls to teach Keepers how to run them competently?

ALL rules are there to 'fix' player & GM behavior.

And the difference between 'advice' and 'rules' for a GM is non-existent. Good advice and good rules are the same thing, and can be equally ignored or implemented.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;566271I think people are having trouble understaning why the pcs decision to push would impact the arrival time of the dogs.

I totally get this. In addition, HOW is the character pushing their Listen skill in this particular example in the first place? By moving outside? By taking additional time? I'm assuming they are taking some kind of action which changes the situation, cause that's the only way it makes 'sense' to retest.

Quote from: game.monkey;566267So you're happy with a dog arriving in (say) a random roll of 3d6 rounds, but unhappy if the result of a skill roll determines when it arrives?  In traditional games there's often a random number of baddies or rounds until something happens - this is just another way of doing that.

No, because this does something very different with the world. As GM, when I roll 3d6 rounds, where the dogs are is not determined in the universe UNTIL I roll.  From that moment on, they're there, and I know when they arrive, they become fixed in the world.
In this system, its not that the roll of the PC determines how long until they get there, its that his roll's success or failure can end up CHANGING where they are, they become "unfixed" in the world, and the world is thus no longer emulative.

QuoteIf you're still unhappy with the distance thing, other options for a failed push for the dogs example above could be:

When the dogs do get there (in 3d6 rounds), the character that "pushed and failed" is the first one they attack, as he's out in front.

The character gets it totally wrong or is turned around by the noises as he desperately turns this way and that trying to work out where they are in the dark, and inadvertantly heads deeper into the woods, or away from safety.

The character tries to get a bit closer to work out where the dogs are and ends up separated from the group (or gets left behind).

The inhuman howling starts gnawing on his mind as he thinks about nothing else (Sanity roll or straight loss of SAN).

The character stops paying as much attention to his surroundings and stumbles down a ravine (perhaps taking damage, or twisting his ankle and slowing him down for the inevitable chase scene later).

These are all things I think would be fine, not as results, but as CONDITIONS to the push.  If the rule says "if the pc fails it means he ran very far ahead and gets attacked", that's even worse than the "quantum hound" situation, because it not only takes away agency from the GM, but from the player as well!
On the other hand, if the way it worked was like this:
1. Player rolls his normal "listen" check and fails
2. Player asks the GM to "push" it.
3. GM tells the player the condition under which pushing is possible ("sure, you could roll another listen check, IF you go deeper into the woods").
4. The result of the "push" roll determines just how far the PC went before he hears the hounds, meaning EITHER way he's closer to the determined location of the dogs, but if he fails he ends up being much closer and they can now take him by surprise.

That would be fine, I think.

QuoteIn many ways, Pushing is a way of saying "if you roll the dice again and fail, the game gives me permission to take the gloves off and fuck you up - only roll if you're okay with that".

And that there is my problem.  The GM in the cthulhu game shouldn't NEED permission to take the gloves off or fuck up the players.  The other side of your statement implies that if the PCs refuse to "push" they should somehow be entitled to be able to demand a certain level of security.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;566485Based on what? Your whiny complaining about a system you don't like nor understand? Get a life.

Chaosium does have a sad track record as a business. Read up on it (at least up to 2006) here.

Quote from: Al Livingstone;566377IMO, most issues being 'fixed' by new rules would be better attended to through providing good advice for GMs.

Seconded. This has been my opinion for a long time. Trying to "foolproof" new GMs by shackling them with rules to compensate for them not doing their job right is not the way to train new GMs. It's just "player protection", removing the most important and unique aspect of RPGs by compromising the role of the GM. By sharing GMing responsibilities among players, it removes them from the ability to immerse in their characters and focus on their primary roles in the game.

Quote from: The Butcher;566581Chaosium does have a sad track record as a business. Read up on it (at least up to 2006) here.

So then change might well be a good thing.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;566714So then change might well be a good thing.

You might want to ask WotC how's that working out for them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;566574No, because this does something very different with the world. As GM, when I roll 3d6 rounds, where the dogs are is not determined in the universe UNTIL I roll.  From that moment on, they're there, and I know when they arrive, they become fixed in the world.

For you.

Quote from: RPGPundit;566574In this system, its not that the roll of the PC determines how long until they get there, its that his roll's success or failure can end up CHANGING where they are, they become "unfixed" in the world, and the world is thus no longer emulative.

Again, for you.

As far as the players are concerned, these facts have not been established, and so whatever method the GM uses to establish them is just as emulative as any other.

And rolling 3d6 is not exactly emulative of anything to begin with. What about taking the dogs' speed and stamina traits into account? Wouldn't that have more to do with how soon they arrive as opposed to an arbitrary roll of 3d6?

Finally, if you're saying that the game is not emulative from the GM's point of view, well that's even more bizarre, because running an RPG involves dealing with all kinds of mechanics which support and thereby expose the emulation, breaking the illusion.

Seriously, are we saying that anything decided on the spot based on facts which haven't been established yet is a game breaker? Seriously?

Not "anything decided on the spot", but these "Quantum Hounds" would be.  

Anything in the world of the setting that can be decided, undecided and redecided depending on a dissociated and somewhat gimmicky mechanic would be game-breaking, yes.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;567120Not "anything decided on the spot", but these "Quantum Hounds" would be.  

Anything in the world of the setting that can be decided, undecided and redecided depending on a dissociated and somewhat gimmicky mechanic would be game-breaking, yes.

RPGPundit

YOu really do have a tiny imagination don't you.

Based on one flaky example the entire mechanic is thus gimmicky and dissasociated even though you have never used it.

What a pedantic little peon you are.

Weird.

I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

Quote from: Sommerjon;567133Weird.

I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

You could claim that discussing any RPG apart from D&D or Pathfinder is "weird" based on this kind of ignorance.

Quote from: Sommerjon;567133Weird.

I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

It has been pretty popular around here.